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Duan, Y, Rhodes, PA and Cheung, V (2018) The Influence of Color on Impulsivity and Arousal: Part 2 – Chroma. Color Research and Application, 43 (3). pp. 405-414. ISSN 0361-2317
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The Influence of Color on Impulsiveness and Arousal:
Part 2 – Chroma
Yiting Duan*a, Peter A. Rhodes b, Vien Cheung b
a Faculty of Materials and Textiles, Silk Institute, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, 928 Second
Avenue, Xiasha Higher Education Zone, Hangzhou, 310018, China
b School of Design, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
*Corresponding author: Yiting Duan, yitingduan@163.com
Peter A. Rhodes: p.a.rhodes@leeds.ac.uk; Vien Cheung: T.L.V.Cheung@leeds.ac.uk
Abstract
In the preceding Part 1, the effect of hue on impulsiveness and arousal was
studied. From those results, yellow, red and orange were selected for further
investigation since participants’ performance was consistent with a low arousal
state (high error rate and long response time) for the yellow background and
high arousal state (low error rate and short response time) for the red
background, whereas orange tended to result in high impulsiveness. This
paper will mainly investigate the fundamental theory of how chroma influences
people’s impulsiveness and arousal state. As in the previous paper, the two
main factors used to measure impulsiveness and arousal are also response
time and error rate for each colored background. In the psychophysical
experiment, participants were looking separately at backgrounds consisting of
three hues (red, yellow and orange) with different chroma levels on screen to
complete a range of psychometric tests. During the experiment, participants
gave their response to the psychometric test as quickly and accurately as
possible. From the results it can be seen that chroma has a significant
influence on participants’ response time and error rate, and influences
impulsiveness and arousal. Gender difference will also be discussed in this
Key words: impulsiveness; arousal; chroma; color psychology.
Introduction
From part one, which dealt with the influence of hue on impulsiveness and
arousal, it was seen that hue has a greater influence on arousal than
impulsiveness, which indicates that particular hues can lead people to a high
or low arousal state. The influence of hue on impulsiveness was very limited. It
cannot be concluded that a particular hue highly influences impulsiveness. In
this paper, the chroma influence on people’s impulsiveness and arousal states
will be discussed. In addition, the influence of the combination of hue and
chroma, as two characteristics of color, will be discussed in this paper.
There are few examples which illustrate that some specific chroma
environments can influence people’s performance. For instance, research has
shown that colors such as pink – a red color with lower chroma – have a
moderating effect on calming people.1 In Schauss's "pink prison study", pink
was seen to physically relax people's muscles and reduce potential or actual
aggression. This finding was examined in a prison in the US and received
positive impact. AL-Ayash2 found that people felt more relaxed, calm and
pleasant under the light color conditions, and reading scores were significantly
higher under the pure color conditions. Strong colors and patterns such as red
put the brain into a more excited state, and sometimes cause a slowing of the
heart rate.3
The present study is aimed at finding out how chroma can influence emotion
Methods
A psychophysical experiment was conducted to investigate chroma’s influence
on impulsiveness and arousal. In this experiment, the types of psychometric
test were reduced to two groups (four types) based on the results from the
previous hue experiment. Participants' performance on the Detail Ability (Odd
One Out and Same Detail) tests was less influenced by color than the other
four tests, therefore this group of tests has been removed from the chroma
experiment. The psychometric tests used in the chroma experiment were:
Logical Ability (Logical Rule and Mathematics Sequence) and Spatial
Imagination Ability (Spatial Structure and Rotation). Table 1 provides an
explanation of the four types of tests used in this study. In this experiment,
participants needed to finish thirty examples of each type. In total, each
needed to complete 120 psychometric tests.
(Table 1 is about here.)
Color Samples
Three hues (red, orange and yellow) were selected as three typical colors
which exhibit different influences on impulsiveness. For each hue, four levels
of chroma were selected – 100%, 75%, 50% and 25% – in the experiment
together with a visual reference white (0% chroma). In total, thirteen colored
backgrounds were used in the experiment. These had similar lightness, which
varied in four chroma levels, and in red, orange and yellow hues. An
equally-luminous visual reference white color was also used in this experiment.
The CIELAB values of the thirteen colored backgrounds were determined from
measurement by a CS-1000 spectroradiometer. The lightness of all the
each level were fixed at around 100%: 69 (± 2); 75%: 52 (± 2); 50%: 35 (± 2);
25%: 16 (± 2). Table 2 and Figure 1 show the characteristics of these colors
and their position in the CIELAB color space. Figure 2 shows the actual screen
in the experiment.
(Table 2 is about here.)
(Figure 1 is about here.)
(Figure 2 is about here.)
Participants
Similar to the previous hue experiment, a total of 28 participants including
fourteen female and fourteen male Chinese subjects were selected to take
part in the chroma experiment.
Experimental Procedure
The same procedure used in the hue experiment was carried out in the
chroma experiment. The experimental environment was a dark room.
Participants were tested individually in the room. The Ishihara Color Vision
Test4 was utilized to screen participants who had not participated in the first
experiment. After passing this test, they were asked to read the instructions
and familiarize themselves with each type of psychometric test. The total
adaptation time before the real experiment was about five minutes. Again,
each participant sat at a fixed distance of 75 cm from the display. The same
Results
The data collected from the experiments consisted of each participant’s
response time and the number of errors, which indicate their performance.
These two sets of data will be analyzed by chroma and by gender in this
section.
Participant Performance
In the chroma experiment there were 28 participants. In this section,
participant repeatability will be discussed according to their consistency
between the first and repeat experiments. Meanwhile, the agreement between
individual results and those of the group will be also considered. As in the hue
experiment, performance is divided into four groups: LI (low impulsiveness),
HA (high arousal), LA (low arousal) and HI (high impulsiveness). In Figure 3
the Error-Speed space shows that for both first-time and repeat, performances
may be clustered into four groups; more participants are plotted in the HI and
LI quadrants than in the HA and LA quadrants.
(Figure 3 is about here.)
Repeatability has also been analyzed according to the four
impulsiveness/arousal state categories, which are summarized in Table 3. LI
and HI are the biggest among the four groups, followed by LA and HA. The
response times for LI and LA are quite similar, around 37 and 36 seconds
respectively; the response times for HI and HA are similar at nearly 25
seconds. Similar error rates for LI and HA can also be found, at around 39%;
the rest of two groups, LA and HI, have the similar error rates: 19% and 21%
(Table 3 is about here.)
From the discussion above, data collected from the chroma experiment can be
concluded to be repeatable and reliable. The four groups (LI, HI, LA and HA)
are distinguishable. Data collected can therefore be confidently used in the
next stage of analysis.
General Trend
In the chroma experiment, impulsiveness and arousal are also determined by
response time and error rate. From Figure 4 it can be seen that participants
performed best (and were most aroused) at the 100% chroma level, with the
shortest response time and the lowest error rate at 26 seconds and 19% errors
respectively. The 75% chroma level is where participants performed the worst
(the least aroused), with the longest response time of 32 seconds and the
highest error rate of 35%. The 0% chroma level showed the tendency for high
impulsiveness, in which the response time is shorter than the average at 28
seconds and error rate is larger than the average at 32%. In the 50% chroma
level, participants performed with low impulsiveness, with a response time of
32 seconds and an error rate of 25%. The 25% chroma level has a response
time in line with the average line, but a lower error rate than average.
(Figure 4 is about here.)
For red, orange and yellow individually (shown in Figure 5), the 100% red and
100% orange are the chroma levels where participants performed with high
performed with high arousal for 50% yellow as well. The 50% red, 75% orange
and 75% yellow chroma levels produced low arousal states for each color.
(These chroma levels all have the longest response time and the highest error
rate within the chroma group.) The 0% chroma (gray) was linked to high
impulsiveness within each chroma group, as they have shorter response times
than average (although red is similar to the average) but higher error rates
than average.
(Figure 5 is about here.)
Experimental data collected from the chroma experiment are also
dimensionless using the same statistical method (the extremum method as
before in order to posit the two factors as response time and error rate in a
single coordinate to analyze impulsiveness and arousal. The extremum
method uses the actual value divided by the maximum value of the whole data
set of response times and error rates individually ( . The
Error-Speed space of dimensionless values is shown in Figure 6.
(Figure 6 is about here.)
From the figure it can be seen that the colors at the 25% chroma level are all
plotted in the HA quadrant or on the boundary of HA and HI quadrants, which
means participants responded quicker than average for this level. The 50%
orange and 50% red are all in LA quadrant, while the 50% yellow is in the HA
quadrant. The 50% orange and 50% red can influence people to be less
aroused and perform slower with a high error rate, whilst the 50% yellow
chroma level are very far apart from each other in the Error-Speed space. The
75% yellow is an impulsive color that is plotted in the HI quadrant. The 75%
red is plotted in the HA quadrant and can arouse people to respond quickly
with fewer errors. The 75% orange is in the LA quadrant and influences
participants to respond slowly with more errors. The colors at the 100%
chroma level are roughly located in the HA and LI quadrants. The 100% yellow
falls on the boundary of the HA and HI quadrants; 100% red is positioned on
the boundary of the HA and LI quadrants. The 100% orange is in the LI
quadrant. People generally made fewer errors for the 100% chroma level (for
all three hues) than the average.
The order of chroma influence on impulsiveness has been calculated by the
indicator E/R (where E is error rate, R is response time). The chroma influence
on arousal has also been calculated by the indicator 1-ER (ER=E times R),
which is the same as in the hue experiment. The E/R value and 1-ER (ER=E
times R) values are summarized in Table 4. According to these, the regression
between C* and impulsiveness values are summarized in Figure 7. The
regression between C* for red, orange and yellow and impulsiveness values
are summarized in Figure 8. The regression between C* and arousal are
summarized in Figure 9, and the regression between C* for red, orange and
yellow and arousal values are summarized in Figure 10.
(Table 4 is about here.)
(Figure 7 is about here.)
(Figure 9 is about here.)
(Figure 10 is about here.)
From Figure 7 and Figure 8 it can be seen that, although there is no overall
chroma change influence on impulsiveness as the R2 value is too small (0.06),
when comparing hues some trend can be found. For red, there is a strong
influence of chroma change on impulsiveness. When chroma is increased, the
impulsiveness state decreased. The R2 value for red chroma-change and
impulsiveness is 0.88. The chroma changes in orange are obvious, but not as
significant as in red. There is also a decreasing impulsiveness in orange, and
the R2 value is 0.42. No trend can be found for chroma change on
impulsiveness across yellow.
Chroma change has no significant influence on arousal, as from Figure 9 and
Figure 10, the regression between chroma and arousal for the overall trend or
for red, orange and yellow respectively are not significant. (For the overall
trend, R2=0.01; for red, R2=0.28; for orange, R2=0.01; for yellow, R2=0.01.)
Color Influence on Impulsiveness and Arousal by Gender
Figure 11 summarizes the chroma influence on impulsiveness according to
gender. At 100% chroma, male participants responded slower with a lower
error rate than females. At 0 to 75% chroma, the male participants responded
quicker with no higher error rate than females. Therefore, for females, 100%
chroma is the level to influence them to be more impulsive. No chroma level
was found that could influence males to be more impulsive. However, this
(Figure 11 is about here.)
The Influence of Color on Impulsiveness and Arousal
Error rate and response time are two indicators that can represent
impulsiveness and arousal at the same time. Hue influence on impulsiveness
and arousal will be discussed based on different combinations of these two
indicators. From the hue and chroma experiments, some major findings are
summarized as follows:
According to the experimental results, hue has a significant influence on
arousal. Hue’s influence on impulsiveness is not significant.
Purple and red are hues that led to participants performing with the
highest arousal state. For blue, yellow and green they performed with
the lowest arousal state among the six colors. Orange fell on the
boundary of high impulsiveness quadrant, which is a relatively
impulsive color among the six hues.
There was a significant influence of red chroma changes on
impulsiveness. When the chroma of red decreased, the impulsiveness
state increased.
An influence of orange chroma change on impulsiveness was also seen
but this was not as significant as red. Similar to red, when the chroma of
orange decreased, the impulsiveness state increased.
The yellow 75% and 0% chroma levels are plotted in the HI quadrant.
The 100% orange is plotted in the LI quadrant. Most of the middle
chroma levels such as 75% orange, 50% red and 50% orange are to be
orange, 75% orange, 25% red and 100% red are located in the HA
quadrant. The 100% yellow, 25% yellow and 100% red are positioned
on the coordinate axis.
The 100% red is the color having the lowest impulsiveness state whilst
75% yellow has the highest impulsiveness state among the test colors
used in this experiment. The 75% orange is the least arousing color
whereas 50% yellow is the most aroused color among all test colors.
There is a tendency for females to be more impulsive than males across
all six hues. However, as the error bars are mostly overlapping, this
trend is not significant. No gender difference can be found in the arousal
influence. The 100% chroma level could influence female participants to
perform with a higher impulsiveness state than males.
Gorn and colleagues found that when designing web pages, chroma is an
important factor for relaxation.5 Lower levels of chroma associated with a
higher level of relaxation. In Gorn’s experiment,6 he found that when people
feel more relaxed they will perceive web downloads as being quicker. In this
study, 0% is the chroma where participants performed the quickest among the
five chroma levels, which agreed with the findings from Gorn et al.6 The 25%
chroma is also relatively quick for participants to respond. However, in this
study participants responded slower for middle chroma levels (50% and 75%).
Ayash et al.2 found that whiteness has a significant influence on reading
comprehension. Colors like pale blue and pale yellow have a more positive
impact on intellectual activity and spatial properties. Schauss found that pink, a
red color with low chroma, has the effect of calming people.1 From the chroma
chroma level is where participants made the fewest errors for the general trend.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the low to middle chroma levels can
influence people to be calmer and have a positive impact on their physical
expression.
One significant finding from this experiment is that the colors in the middle
chroma levels influence people to think more carefully and improve their
answers for almost all types of psychometric tests. This partly agrees with the
major findings from literatures.1-2, 5-6 However, in this study, the chroma
influence on impulsiveness and arousal is more complex than that found in
previous research. Some vivid colors can also make a positive impact on
human performance. For example, the general trend shows that people
perform with low impulsiveness for the 100% chroma level for the 100%
orange and 100% red in particular. When chroma decreases, this does not
mean that performance keeps improving. For colors like red and orange,
chroma decrease can raise the level of impulsiveness.
In the chroma and hue experiment, as participants roughly spent 15 minutes
on each color, the influence of color on them is more short- to mid- term.
Figure 12 and Figure 13 indicate the degree of impulsiveness and arousal in
the Hue-Chroma polar contour space.
(Figure 12 is about here.)
From Figure 12, it can be seen that high impulsiveness is located at middle to
high chroma yellow and orange (hues around 75° to 125°, with chroma
of nearly 45° and 100% chroma level), middle chroma yellowish green (hue
of around 100° and 50% chroma level), and high chroma greenish blue (hue
of around 180° – 240°, and 100% chroma level).
(Figure 13 is about here.)
From Figure 13, the high arousal colors are located at high chroma reddish
colors (hue of 330° – 45°, and 100% chroma level), and middle chroma yellowish green (hue of 100°, and 25% – 50% chroma levels). The low
arousal colors are located at middle chroma orange (hue of 50° to 75°, and
50% – 75% chroma levels), and high chroma yellow (hue of 90° to 100°, and
75% chroma levels).
Summary and Suggested Applications
This study investigated the influence of hue and chroma on impulsiveness and
arousal. Some novel findings from this experiment are summarized as follows:
The effect of chroma on impulsiveness and arousal is complex. Chroma
influences impulsiveness more than arousal, as a clear decreasing
trend of impulsiveness can be seen along with the increase of chroma
for red and yellow. There was no clear effect of chroma on arousal.
Generally, middle chroma levels (50% and 75%) result in slower
response times than low and high chroma levels. Colors at 100%
chroma result in the fewest errors. Although people think for longer with
middle chroma levels, this does not mean that they will make fewer
mistakes. On the contrary, they normally make more errors for middle
Chroma influences on response time, error rate and impulsiveness are
significantly different across the four types of psychometric tests.
Gender difference was not significant, however there was a trend for
females to respond slower than males and with more errors.
The hue and chroma experiments have some limitations. Participants in this
experiment were all Chinese, aged between 20 and 38. The results in this
experiment are limited in that it did not cover a broad culture and age group. It
is difficult to use these selected colors to predict the trend of hue and chroma
influence across the whole color space; this would need to be studied more
comprehensively in the future.
From the findings in this study, some suggestions can be proposed to guide
designers in their use of color. A more explicit commentary of how the findings
can be used to specific design practices are summarized in four parts as
Fashion and Textile Design, Environment Design and Graphic Design.
Fashion and Textile Design
From previous research, a red uniform can arouse people to perform better.7
According to the findings from this study, apart from red, all chromatic reddish
colors (e.g. red, orange and purple) can improve people’s performance. These
are all preferred colors for sportswear or functional uniform design, which aims
to affect people’s bodily behavior. High chroma yellow is the least arousing
color and influences people to perform slower with more mistakes, which
seems to be the color that designers should avoid in sportswear design. If
yellow is really needed, medium chroma yellowish-green colors are more
Environment Design
McKean reported that in Tokyo, blue lights in train stations are claimed to
influence people to become less impulsive and to reduce the suicide rate in
that location.8 However, to the author’s knowledge, there is no theoretical
basis can support this. From the results in this study, the hue influence on
impulsivity is not obvious. All colors having a high chroma level (75% - 100%)
can influence people to be less impulsive. From the results in this study, green
and blue are relatively “safe” colors that have little influence on arousal and
impulsivity. They can be used in interior design, such as offices or hospitals,
where people need to stay calm. For example the “green room” in the theatre
(in which walls were originally painted green) was first designed for actors to
reduce anxiety and nerves.
Graphic Design
In graphic design, colors have various functions that can influence people
differently. For example, the color of warning or remaining signs need to be
obvious, and people need to respond quick when they see the sign; therefore
from the findings in this study, high chromatic red and yellow are colors that
are more suitable when designing such signs. Another example is located in
web design. Apart from aesthetics, when designing website elements, the
mission of color can be attracting attention. High chroma yellow can influence
people to have a high level of impulsivity compared with other hues. Reddish
colors (such as orange, red and purple) can arouse people’s performance.
References
[1] Schauss AG. Tranquilizing effect of color reduces aggressive behavior and potential violence. Orthomolecular Psychiatry. 1979; 8 (4): 218-221.
[2] AL-Ayash A, Kane RT, Smith D, Green-Armytage P. The influence of color on student emotion, heart rate, and performance in learning environments. Color Research and Application. 2015; 41 (2): 196-205.
[3] Küller R, Mikellides B, Janssens J. Color, arousal, and performance - A comparison of three experiments. Color Research and Application. 2009; 34 (2): 141-152.
[4] Ishihara, S. 1993. Ishihara's Tests for Color-Blindness. Tokyo: Plate Edition.
[5] Gorn GJ, Chattopadhyay A, Yi T, and Darren WD. Effects of color as an executional cue in advertising: they’re in the shade. Management Science, 1997; 43 (October): 1387-1400.
[6] Gorn GJ, Chattopadhyay A, Sengupta J, and Tripathi S. Waiting for the web: how screen color affects time perception. Journal of Marketing Research, 2004; XLI (May): 215-225.
[7] Hagemann, N., Strauss, B. and Jan, L., 2008. When the referee sees red. Psychological Science, 19, pp. 769-771.
[8] McKean, C. A., 2014. How Blue Lights on Train Platforms Combat Tokyo’s Suicide Epidemic. [Online]. [Accessed 26, Jan, 2017]. Available from:
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/how-blue-lights-on-train-platforms-combat-tokyos-suicide-epidemic.
Biographies
Dr Yiting Duan is a textile design lecturer in Faculty of Material and Textile,
Silk Institute, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University. Her research areas are related to
color psychology, color design, textile and fashion product design. She was
awarded a PhD from University of Leeds for her thesis "The Impact of Colour
research between color and two emotional and bodily response: impulsivity
and arousal. She was awarded the Palmer Award from The Colour Group
Great Britain (CGGB) in 2013 for her research in color and textile design.
Dr Peter A. Rhodes is a lecturer in color imaging at the School of Design,
University of Leeds. He was awarded a PhD for his thesis “Computer
Mediated Color Fidelity and Communication” from Loughborough University of
Technology which led to the development of the first
what-you-see-is-what-you-get system for color specification and
communication within the textile industry. He has produced over 50 academic
publications, including book chapters on color management and color notation
systems, and contributed towards the development of the ISO 10617 standard
for colorimetric communication. In addition to his role as Director of Student
Education, he is actively engaged in a number of commercially-oriented
research and development projects.
Dr Vien Cheung currently holds an academic post as Associate Professor in
Color and Imaging Science at the University of Leeds. Her research interests
are color vision, spectral imaging, color reproduction and color, all as applied
to the art and design disciplines. Dr Cheung is active in several professional
bodies including The Colour Group Great Britain (CGGB), the International
Colour Association (AIC), and the Society for Imaging Science and Technology
(IS&T). She was awarded the Selwyn Award from The Royal Photographic
Society in 2008 for her research in color imaging and imaging technology, a
Silver Medal from the Society of Dyers and Colourists in 2011 in recognition of
her contributions to education, the Society and in the interests of the allied
industries, and the 2016 Service Award from the IS&T for her contributions in
Figures:
Figure 1 The thirteen colors in CIELAB space.
80 60 40 20 0 20 40 60 80
80 60 40 20 0 20 40 60 80
b*
a*
80 60 40 20 0 20 40 60 80
80 60 40 20 0 20 40 60 80
b*
Figure 3 The Error-Speed space and participants’ performance in the chroma experiment. 15.00 10.00 5.00 0.00 5.00 10.00 15.00
30% 20% 10% 0% 10% 20% 30%
First Time
Repeat
Slower
Error Rate High Impulsivity (HI)
Low Impulsivity (LI) High Arousal (HA)
High Low
Response Time
Low Arousal (LA)
Quicker 15.00 10.00 5.00 0.00 5.00 10.00 15.00
30% 20% 10% 0% 10% 20% 30%
First Time
Repeat
Slower
Error Rate High Impulsivity (HI)
Low Impulsivity (LI) High Arousal (HA)
High Low
Response Time
Low Arousal (LA)
Quicker 15.00 10.00 5.00 0.00 5.00 10.00 15.00
30% 20% 10% 0% 10% 20% 30%
First Time
Repeat
Slower
Error Rate High Impulsivity (HI)
Low Impulsivity (LI) High Arousal (HA)
High Low
Response Time
Low Arousal (LA)
Quicker
Slower
Error Rate High Impulsivity (HI)
Low Impulsivity (LI) High Arousal (HA)
High Low
Response Time
Low Arousal (LA)
Figure 4 Response time and error rate by chroma level. The lines in figure
Figure 5 (a)-(f) represent the response times and error rates by chroma level
for red, orange and yellow. The lines in (a) - (f) represent the mean.
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
E rr o r Rate
Chorma Level 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Re sp o n se T im e 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
E rr o r Rat e 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
E rr o r Rate (b) (c) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Re sp o n se T im e (a) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Re sp o n se T im e (f) (e) (d) Red Red Orange Orange Yellow Yellow 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
E rr o r Rate
Chorma Level 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Re sp o n se T im e 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
E rr o r Rat e 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
E rr o r Rate (b) (c) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Re sp o n se T im e (a) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Re sp o n se T im e (f) (e) (d) 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
E rr o r Rate
Chorma Level 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Re sp o n se T im e 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
E rr o r Rat e 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
E rr o r Rate (b) (c) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Re sp o n se T im e 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Re sp o n se T im e (a) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Re sp o n se T im e 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Figure 6 Thirteen colors (with reference white) plotted in Error-Speed space.
0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
0.5 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.5
Slower
Error Rate HI
HA Quicker
High Low
Response Time
LA LI
Y75 Reference White
Y100 Y50
Y25
O100
O75 O50 O25
R100 R75
Figure 8 The regression fit between C* value for red, orange and yellow and
Figure 10 The regression fit between C* value for red, orange and yellow and
Figure 11 (a) Response time by gender; (b) error rate by gender.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
Re
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o
n
se
T
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0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
100% 75% 50% 25% 0%
E
rr
o
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Ra
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(a) (b)
Tables:
Table 1
(a) Logical Ability Test
Logical Rule: In this type of test, you are required to choose from a set of alternatives which diagram
will complete a similar analogy to the first example.
Mathematics Sequence: In this type of test, you are given a string of numbers. You have to work out
the number that is missing from the string (marked “?”).
(b) Spatial Imagination Ability Tests
Spatial Structure: In this type of test, you need to look at the unfolded shape and then choose which
Rotation: In this type of test, you are shown a shape in the middle of the page. Below there are five
other shapes. You have to decide which of the alternatives is identical to the original shape. It will still
be identical to the original if it has been rotated. It will not be the same as the original if it has been
Table 2
Colors L* h (°) C* a* b*
Visual Reference White 69.71 29.10 0.48 0.42 0.23
Red 100% 69.63 34.24 68.58 56.69 38.59
Red 75% 71.30 32.12 53.92 45.67 28.67
Red 50% 72.49 34.73 33.25 27.32 18.94
Red 25% 71.67 32.59 13.64 11.49 7.35
Orange 100% 71.17 67.83 67.07 25.31 62.11
Orange 75% 72.69 68.43 50.16 18.44 46.64
Orange 50% 70.20 66.74 35.31 13.94 32.44
Orange 25% 69.16 68.91 18.40 6.62 17.17
Yellow 100% 70.71 98.78 70.97 -10.83 70.14
Yellow 75% 68.56 99.49 52.83 -8.71 52.11
Yellow 50% 69.13 99.21 36.40 -5.83 35.93
Yellow 25% 68.60 96.83 17.44 -2.07 17.32
The white point in this experiment was customized. The XYZ values for the white point are:
Table 3
Variables Impulsiveness
Status N Mean± STD error
Response time (sec)
LI 18 37±1
LA 11 36±1
HI 17 25±1
HA 10 24±1
Error rate (%)
LI 18 19±2
LA 11 39±3
HI 17 39±2
HA 10 21±2
Table 4
Color E/R 1-ER Color E/R 1-ER
100% yellow 0.75 0.51 25% orange 0.64 0.55
75% yellow 1.21 0.17 100% red 0.39 0.72
50% yellow 0.54 0.74 75% red 0.61 0.59
25% yellow 0.73 0.49 50% red 0.78 0.27
100% orange 0.37 0.69 25% red 0.74 0.58
75% orange 0.87 0.13 reference white 0.93 0.43